


Back

by Zeborah



Category: due South
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-11-25
Updated: 2001-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-26 12:49:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeborah/pseuds/Zeborah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An old ghost returns to haunt Fraser.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Victoria's Secret, Letting Go, Flashback.

He stepped into the apartment and shut the door behind him, bone-tired. It was good to be back to normal; or so everyone told him.

 _You know, Benny, I'm really glad you're back, but would you mind shutting up?_

No, of course he didn't mind shutting up, not when Ray asked him so... politely. He tossed his Stetson sharply on the kitchen table and leaned, arms folded, on a chair, dropping his head to his chest. Diefenbaker was flopped in a corner half-asleep, as insensitive to his pain as Ray had been. --But that wasn't fair. They'd been making arrests; he'd been babbling; Ray'd replied with the casual not-insult he used with his closest family.

 _Good to see you back, Constable. I trust you'll have time to finish your paperwork before leaving tonight._ And he had of course had time, because the pile of papers on his desk had miraculously halved while he'd been away; and he hadn't of course expected her to say anything else, because even if Turnbull hadn't been working nearby, his own body made him all too aware that the only way for the two of them to retain their professionalism, while working together so closely, was to... retain their professionalism while working together so closely.

But he wasn't back, and he wanted to tell them that.

He had a splitting headache, and the several hours of the kidnapping investigation were nothing but a dream-like blur in his memory, and all the way to the station, and all the way from there to the consulate, he'd had to fight the bizarre urge to call Ray 'Mack'.

If he'd ever known someone called Mack, he couldn't remember that either. It was even odder than calling him after Steve Puget from the Aklavik grocery store.

He straightened his back stiffly -- the fall from the van had given him a variety of mild contusions, as well as temporary amnesia -- and went to the kitchen to make some tea. It would relax him, and that would soothe the pounding in his skull. And after all, in the greater scheme of things, a few missing hours in his memory was a mild nuisance only.

Something akin to a mosquito bite that he just couldn't stop scratching. He knew he couldn't possibly have missed anything important, but he couldn't bear not to remember every word that had been said. They'd talked about Francesca at one point. They'd talked about his apartment, too, and the station, and the consulate.

Eggs. He remembered, now, the moments in the incubator when he'd fought so desperately to... retain his professionalism, knowing instinctively that he and Inspector Thatcher would both regret it later if he didn't. That sense of foreboding had been borne out by their spur-of-the-moment, caution-to-the-winds, now-and-forever kiss a few weeks later, and by the enforced amnesia on its subject ever since.

He'd wondered, for a while: if he were back in the incubator, would he do anything differently? Now he knew the answer was no. He might, if he was on the train, do something to avoid that kiss. It had been a mistake, and he couldn't fool himself anymore that Inspector Thatcher thought otherwise. If she did, she would have reminded him of trains instead of eggs.

The kettle whistled and he watched the thin plume of steam for a moment before lifting it off the stove. What else had they talked about? His father, but thankfully not quite long enough to reveal the streak of irreality in that... relationship. Women, as if the way he attracted their eye were a blessing instead of a burden. And Victoria.

His wrists had been strained by hanging on to the back on the van; they shook a little now as he poured the steaming water onto the teabag in his mug.

Victoria. It had been almost a year since anyone had mentioned her to him, let alone Ray. Ray, the person he most desperately wanted to talk to about her. Ray, who always had something to say to fill the silences that he was using to build up the courage to say something. Ray, who he knew still blamed himself for the bullet in his back.

So for a year he hadn't said anything and Ray hadn't said anything. From cowardice on his side; on Ray's side it was from guilt and awkwardness and a persistent denial that his 'Benny' could ever feel lust for a woman. It was a denial that would have been more irritating if he hadn't worked so hard for so long to make it true. Cowardice and denial and guilt on both sides. All Ray had ever said, before this afternoon, was while he was recovering in hospital...

 _Victoria was not your fault. It could've happened to anybody. You were blind-sided._

Odd, to think back that far. Back to a time when everything had been a dream of another shade; to when three weeks were hazier than this single day had been. He'd never worried then about any missing time in his memory, or that he might be forgetting something important. He'd wanted to forget; he'd asked, once, about the investigation, but he'd been glad that Ray had answered so briefly. He'd only asked out of some form of bravado, to prove to someone -- to Ray, his father, himself? -- that he was over her and that his focus was back where it belonged, on law and order and duty.

But now, as he thought back to it, he wondered. Now, as he sipped at his tea and his head ached, those missing days nagged at him. What had happened in the outside world while he'd been lying in coma and delirium and gloom?

 _For all we know she could be in Afghanistan._

That had obviously been exaggeration. They'd have been looking for her in all the airports; her name and passport would have been flagged in the system. And she hadn't had the resources anymore to charter a flight, and a stolen plane would have been too obvious to anyone looking. No, she'd stayed in the country. The airline tickets he'd seen in her bag would never have been used, even if she'd intended to use them in the first place.

He swirled the tea in his cup and turned to lean back against the bench. What would she have done instead? She'd said she was going somewhere warmer; that wasn't entirely incommensurate with taking a train to New York first, and she could always have changed trains at Cleveland, Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. In fact, she wouldn't have had a choice, when he'd brought the police down on her at the train station. Otherwise they'd just have been waiting for her when she got out -- but then, they could have done that at the first station in Indianapolis -- or they could have stopped the train before it had even left Union Station--

 _They haven't found her, you know._

He stood and walked to the table again, tea forgotten. They would have done that, of course. So how had she escaped? A quick disguise wouldn't have sufficed, and anything she'd had would have been in her bag, left in the station. Or was he underestimating her skills at improvisation? He forced himself to imagine her, squeezing into the toilets with a conductor's body, dressing in the uniform, hair tucked into her cap, walking away past the policemen -- perhaps supporting an 'ill' passenger... How many people could she have hurt to keep her freedom? What, exactly, hadn't Ray told him? His head ached.

"I'm going to the library," he told Diefenbaker. Any article in the newspaper would be vague and distorted, but it would be something. Something to assuage his curiosity... or something to pique it enough that he wouldn't back out of asking Ray as he'd backed out of talking about the rest of it before. "If you'd care to join me?"

Diefenbaker didn't care to join him; he looked up, but didn't otherwise move. He was quite comfortable where he was, and had no interest in books even if he would have been allowed inside.

"Oh, well, as long as you're comfortable," he said with a touch of light sarcasm. "We wouldn't want you to lose any of that layer of fat you've been working on, would we?"

Diefenbaker's look reproached him for the jibe, and refused to be thus manipulated.

"As you wish," he said, and exchanged his cooling tea for the Stetson that fit so smoothly on the head that ached so much.

* * *

He let the microfilm rattle across the lens, blurring articles into advertisements and day into day. Then he slowed it to a crawl at the front page of the paper that had appeared during his operation. There was nothing on the first few pages, but then he found the headline: _Mountie down in underground encounter_. It sacrificed accuracy for assonance, but essentially...

He shifted the lens to centre the article, and took a breath. The reporter, thankfully, hadn't found out who exactly had pulled the trigger; in fact the description of the title's 'encounter' was brief and probably just a paraphrase of what one of the police had been willing to say. More was made of the money scattered by the lockers and -- he leaned a little closer, breathed again -- the stopping of the train as it started to pull from the tunnel into the night.

 _Metcalf, who is also being implicated in a shooting outside a zoo, was fatally shot in a confrontation with police. No Amtrak passengers or employees were harmed._

His mind fastened on the word 'also', and the way it implied that Victoria had been the one to shoot him. It was unfair and untrue; only a little simpler for the journalist to classify among the tropes of the business. Like that clinically detached 'fatally shot' -- so much cleaner than 'shot dead' or 'gunned down' -- and there it hit him, sharper in his stomach than the pain was in his head. There her image lay bleeding as Ray told him, _They haven't found her, you know,_ and the article continued, saying that two police were receiving counselling, and that investigations would continue, and that he was in critical condition in the Memorial Hospital, his chances of survival uncertain...

He stood abruptly. There would be other articles, but suddenly there was no point in reading them. She was dead, and that was the end of the chase that he'd assumed had continued for another three weeks without being solved. --No, he hadn't just assumed it; that was what Ray had told him. He'd thought for a year that she was still at large, and he'd felt ambiguously enough about that that he'd tried not to think of it too often. Now she was dead, and he wasn't sure he felt anything at all but a sort of blank surprise.

And a headache.

"Did you find what you were looking for, sir?"

He turned to the librarian and masked the sudden imbalance and slight sway with a quick step to gather his Stetson. "Yes, thank you," he told her. "I was just going to..."

"Photocopy?" she said, misinterpreting his gesture towards the microfilm reel. "Here, let me..." She glanced at the screen to check it was properly aligned, then looked up at him again. "A friend of yours?"

He tipped his head to one side, fought to breathe. "In a manner of speaking."

"You know," she said as he started to hand his library card to her, "I've been meaning to check the toner in this thing. Do you mind if I use this as a test?" She swiped her own card through before he had a chance to reply, tapped out her code and hit the button. When the photocopy came out, she handed it to him without looking. "There, perfect," she said. "Thank you."

"Thank you," he repeated, looking at it warm and crisp in his hands. And it _was_ perfect; the words stood out clearly. _Fatally shot._

When he looked up, the librarian was gone. He folded the photocopy carefully in four and slid it into his pocket, then rewound the microfilm and put it away in its drawer.

The light outside hurt his eyes and intensified his headache.

* * *

He scratched Diefenbaker's collar absent-mindedly as the wolf snuffled down his dinner. "She's dead," he told him.

Diefenbaker looked up quizzically.

"Victoria," he explained, looking up and through the window. "She was shot."

Diefenbaker barked once and went back to his dinner.

He smiled wryly. "Well, yes, I suppose that could be true," he said, and kept scratching behind Diefenbaker's ears.

* * *

Work was too slow at the consulate the next day, and the glare from the computer screen hurt his head. His mind was easily distractible; one minute he was working, the next he was starting to pull the photocopied article out of his pocket. Diefenbaker was right. No, not right. But not wrong. He couldn't wish that she'd been spared only to take someone else's life, and that would have happened, he knew it. Not that she would, necessarily, in cold blood; but cornered, on the run, in shock... it'd been a desperate situation. She wouldn't have given up.

He shut his eyes and massaged his temples, then opened them and started typing again. Somehow he made it until the time of his meeting with Inspector Thatcher, and somehow he managed through that, as well. His only distraction then was to wonder why no-one had told him -- why Ray, his best friend, had actually lied to him -- and when he came out of that reverie he found the inspector finishing a lecture about something he'd just received email about.

"Understood, sir," he said, snapping his eyes back to look at her as she looked up at him again.

"Dismissed," she said briefly.

He nodded and turned to leave; then wondered and turned back: "Sir, did you know Victoria Metcalf was dead?"

She blinked, and he realised how out-of-the-blue that had sounded. He was about to apologise when she put down the glasses she'd just been picking up and said, "I was aware of that, Constable, yes. As you know, I reviewed your personnel files when I took this position, and I requested some... clarification from the Chicago Police Department about certain points."

"Ah," he said. So they'd told her, but not him. Well, perhaps they'd assumed he already knew. "I see," he added.

"Why do you ask?"

"Why do I...?" he echoed, and shook his head carefully, lips pursed in thought. "No reason, sir. Uh... curiosity." He made a vague gesture. "Killed the cat. I should..." He waved behind him to the door and started turning to it.

"Constable," Inspector Thatcher said before he could get there, and added, "Fraser." She was standing when he turned back to face her, and behind her was a backdrop of painfully blinding light. "When I first... That is..." She stood straighter, then walked around the desk in an attempt at less formality. At least the light dimmed a little as he tracked her with his eyes. "I only haven't mentioned this before because I was told... initially... by the Chicago Police... that it was a sensitive topic..." She paused expectantly.

He shook his head, then nodded, his head aching too much to decide on an appropriate comment.

"And when I first arrived," she continued, "I was led to believe, by the recent events of the time, to suspect that you... didn't have as much honour and integrity as some other people... were led to believe."

"Oh." That made sense, he thought, a little dazed by the confession. "Well, I can see how you might have--"

"I was wrong, Constable," she interrupted him, a note of defensiveness in her voice. She tossed her hair slightly -- it flashed distractingly in the light -- and added, "Of course. Which I've come to realise, as we've worked together over the months. And as I've seen you perform your duties, even if you have a rather unconventional manner of performing them -- which I don't condone."

He shook his head again. "No, sir."

"But nevertheless, you do perform them to a consistently high standard, and I've come to appreciate your presence here." Her eyes caught his and held, and time seemed a little shakier than usual. Even space wavered between them, so that they were nearer one moment, farther the next.

He struggled to remember where he was and what he was supposed to be doing. "Thank you, sir," he said somehow, though his lungs weren't working. His tongue darted out nervously to lick a lip.

Thatcher's eyes dropped briefly, then her chin rose and her face firmed. "Dismissed," she said quickly, and a little sharply.

He nodded in relief at the breaking of the spell and fled the room for the darker safety of his office.

* * *

It was summer, so even when he left the consulate at five o'clock the sun was still high and hot, and though he tipped the brim of his hat down to shade his eyes, the light still glared off the passing cars at him. He started walking home heavily, his eyes on the shadows to provide some relief from the heat that itched under his tunic and burnt in his scalp. His hand twitched by his side, where the photocopy was still folded in his pocket.

A car pulled up beside him and he glanced into the shade inside. Ray. Ray who hadn't told him. Maybe it would have been better if he'd never found out. He glanced up into the deep blue sky and the bright flashes of sun in windows. No; the truth might hurt, but it was still the truth.

"Benny, you going somewhere?"

He looked back; Ray had leaned across to wind down the window. "I was going home."

Ray gave him an incredulous look. "You're going the wrong way."

He blinked, then looked around. Ray was right; he'd been heading north instead of south, without realising it. The thought disquieted him, and he covered it up quickly with a casual prevarication. "Well, a longer route provides more exercise, Ray."

Ray kept the incredulous look. "Fraser, in this heat you've got no business getting even one block's exercise. I'll drive you, okay?"

He hesitated a little, as the sun beat down on his shoulders and his forehead sweated pain into his hat, not sure why he was hesitating. It really was too hot out here, and he really should talk to Ray.

Ray leaned a bit more to open the door and push it ajar.

"Thank you, Ray," he said, and got inside, taking his hat off and buckling the seatbelt.

Ray started driving, sparing a double-take of a glance at his face. "No-one but you could look that pale in this heat, Benny."

"What?"

"Are you okay?"

He hid a grimace of pain as he moved his head too quickly. "I'm fine." He studied his hat; it was easier on his eyes than looking out the window. His hand itched towards the photocopy in his pocket.

"Dragon Lady working you too hard, huh?"

"Actually, the inspector lightened my workload significantly yesterday to compensate for the time I had to take off."

"Yeah, right," Ray said mockingly. "And today?"

"She was very gracious," he said, remembering her apology. The photocopy crackled under his hand, and he took a breath, ready to ask--

But Ray said, "I'll bet she was. You know, Benny, any time you want to come down to the station to help out on the paperwork _I_ have to do after the cases _you_ drag me into, you just feel free."

That was how quickly the moment slipped away, and still he was too much of a coward to grab it back. He looked up out the window, letting the light stab at his temples until he could hardly see. "I do have other duties," he said evenly, as if this was any other conversation on any other day. And Ray took the bait, and it was the same conversation they'd had a hundred times before, but this was the first time he'd realised how much the same it had always been.

And all the while his hand inched towards the opening of his pocket, until a finger touched the photocopy, and then another, and he slowly drew it out as Ray drove him closer to his apartment.

He didn't open it. But when the Riv stopped he didn't turn to Ray and thank him for the ride; instead he kept looking ahead through the windshield and asked, "Where was Victoria buried?"

"How the hell do you think I--" Ray started, stopped, and whirled in his seat to face him. "Where did you-- Who _told_ you that?"

He tipped his head wryly, still without looking at Ray. "No-one told me, Ray. But I thought you knew that."

"You know what I mean, Fraser."

That was his cue to unfold the photocopy. Slowly, without looking at it. "The truth will out." He handed it over, opened the door and stepped out, putting his hat on automatically as he did.

He'd hardly shut the door behind him when Ray was ducking out his side and leaning over the hood of the car. "What's this, Benny? And what are you doing with it?"

He turned back around. "It's a photocopy, Ray," he said, letting the anger tinge every tone with sarcasm. His headache wasn't making it easy to control himself, and he wondered if he would have bothered trying, if he'd still been the same man as he'd been as an amnesiac. "An article from a newspaper. And I'm reading it to find out the truth."

"You expect to get the truth from page six of a-- a tabloid?"

He lifted his hands briefly from his sides. "Where else should I get it from?" he asked. "You?"

"What was I supposed to do, huh, Benny? I'm suppposed to tell you the woman's dead when you're lying in that hospital bed catatonic because of her?"

"Well..." He glanced to the west, to the slowly lowering sun, and scratched his eyebrow with a thumbnail to hide the wince that the light caused. "If it's any help," he said, looking back into Ray's eyes, "I was lying in that hospital bed catatonic because of a bullet in my back."

Ray stared at him for a moment, then looked to the east with a tight laugh. "Okay, Fraser, like you say. Obviously I should have let you go and get gunned down by IA instead." He stepped back and started to open the car door, then looked up again and said, "You want to know the truth, Fraser? You want to know how she died?"

"Please," he said, nothing of the courteous in his tone.

"They stopped the train, she runs to a door on the wrong side from the platform, knocks out a conductor and breaks it open. She's running across the tracks, but one of the cops spots her, tells her to stop running and give herself up. She doesn't stop, so he shoots. Grazes her on the shoulder. She keeps running. The other cops are there by now, and they shoot her too. One, two, three in the chest. IA does not like being made a fool of. She's dead before she hits the ground." He yanked the door open. "That's the truth for you, Fraser. I hope it makes you feel better."

He stood rooted on the sidewalk, his lips tingling cold as Ray ducked into the car, shut the door with a resounding slam, and drove off. The blue sky dissolved into grey, the grey buildings dissolved into black; the pain in his head took over everything as he turned and swayed, stumbled his way into the building and up to his apartment.

* * *

 _He flies onto the train, into her arms, into ecstasy, knowing all the while that it's about to end--_

 _There is the jolt that shocks his body, but it's not him that falls. Her smile turns wide-eyed and frightened, and he sees her land in the snow. The bloodstain spreads beneath her as she shudders into death. Eric arrives and tells him, "This is mine. You want meat, Mountie? Go to a supermarket."_

 _He stumbles to his feet, but when he wipes the tears from his eyes they turn to blood on his hands. He looks up to a rock on the lee-side of the hill; Ray looks back at him through the barrel of the gun._

* * *

By the morning, the aspirin he'd borrowed from Mr Mustafi had worn off; not that it'd succeeded in more than dulling the pain while he'd slept. He twisted off his bed and sat, then stood, slowly and carefully, shielding his eyes from the window. He got ready automatically, moving emptily around the empty rooms. He was going to have to leave early; Ray wouldn't be driving him this morning.

By now he'd worked out how to keep the headache from peaking. No sharp movements of his head or eyes. No bright light. No loud noises. And no stress.

Stress was impossible to avoid. He kept his breathing and heartrate steady, but that took concentration, and concentration was stress in itself. Lack of concentration was worse; if he didn't concentrate he thought of Ray, and of their fight the night before. He thought of his dreams, and Victoria's death -- and he still didn't know how he felt about that -- and he thought of the bitter anger in Ray's voice as he'd told Fraser what had happened.

He thought of the look of shock and betrayal in Ray's eyes when he'd reminded him of the bullet in his back, and he felt the heavy hand of guilt again on his shoulders.

Too much guilt. Too much betrayal.

He ate breakfast half-heartedly and watched Diefenbaker push his to the coolest corner of the apartment. When he was done, he filled a deep bowl with water and ice and left it on the floor. He hesitated at the door. "Are you sure you don't want to come? The Consulate is air-conditioned."

Diefenbaker didn't think the walk there would be worth it when he could sleep here all day.

"As you wish," he said, and closed the door behind him. He walked downstairs carefully, a hand trailing on the bannister just in case. It was comfortably dark in the stairwell, and he waited until he was stepping out the door to put on his Stetson.

The Riv was parked outside.

He ducked his head for a moment before walking slowly over. Ray was getting out; they stood on opposite sides of the car, awkwardly silent, then each leaned, arms folded, onto the hood.

Ray cleared his throat. "Okay, I acted like a jerk. I should have told you about her earlier. A lot earlier. I'm sorry. Anyway, I dug around and..." He handed over a brown folder of papers. "I don't know how much you want to know, or why you want to know, for that matter, but that's everything I could get hold of."

He opened the folder and looked at the mug shots of her. Behind them were reports and statements an inch thick. "Thank you, Ray."

"It turns out they flew her body back up to her parents in Alaska. I don't know what they did there for her second funeral in two months, but--" He pulled out a folded paper from his pocket and handed that across as well. "That's their address, and there's the funeral director's. There's just the one graveyard in the town, anyway."

"How long did this take you?"

Ray twisted a smile. "Ehh. I couldn't sleep anyway."

He nodded, head still bowed over the reports and addresses, then closed the folder. He'd read it later. "Thank you," he said, looking up.

That had been a mistake. The sun stabbed at him from his right, sliding in easily under the brim of his Stetson and reflecting from the polished hood of the Riv for good measure. He winced and spun away, bringing the folder up to shield his eyes, accidentally knocking off his Stetson, swaying with sudden dizziness as the hat hit the ground somewhere near his feet.

"Fraser!"

He winced again at the shout, and tried to straighten, but he could feel his face, his whole scalp, still contorted with the pain. "It's just a headache," he lied.

"You had a head injury two days ago," Ray said from beside him now.

"I know. It will go away in its own time. The doctor said I didn't have a concussion."

"Yeah, well I think you should get a second opinion, and I don't think that opinion should be yours. He who treats himself has a fool for a doctor, right?"

"Right," Fraser acquiesced, and let Ray guide him into the car and hand his Stetson in after him.

* * * * *

The headache did go away, slowly, with the help of the first week of his impromptu holiday, and the pills the doctor prescribed. It'd been better even on the first day, as he'd stood over Victoria's grave and wordlessly prayed that now, after the love and the hate and the tearing of her soul, she could finally rest in peace; and it'd been better on the second day, as he'd stood at the gate to the old land, looking over the burnt-out cabin and knowing that there was no way to rebuild it.

No way to go back.

So on the third day he'd put the deed up for sale and bought, to replace it, the deed for a piece of land with a cabin at Fortitude Bay. The name wasn't a coincidence; the land's isolation wasn't its only selling point. In one sense it was a safe harbour for him, a resting place where he could regain his strength and stability. In another it was recognition that Victoria and Fortitude Pass were a part of his life; a painful part, but not a part he could deny anymore.

He hiked for four days to reach the land, and Diefenbaker padded happily beside him. It was good for them both to be home, even though home was nowhere they'd been before. On the fourth day, they arrived as the sun dipped below the horizon for the night. He pried loose the wooden boards of the southern windows so he could see the inside of the cabin, and instead ended up staring out at the sweep of the pink-tinged scrub and rock and the last patches of blue-shadowed ice.

He laughed for joy at its beauty, and rested his cheek against the warm window. The thought passed through his mind that his headache was gone, though he hadn't had any pills all day, and he smiled again.

When he turned around, Diefenbaker was asleep. He surveyed the cabin: he'd need to buy a few things, lay in supplies, build a basic lean-to. Once he'd rested here for a few days he could make the round-trip down for what he needed, then build the lean-to and relax for the rest of his time off.

And then, when he went back to Chicago -- well, it wouldn't be back. He could never go back to what had been before, even if he'd wanted to. No matter what he wanted, it would all be subtly different. _Everything changes,_ and that was the way things should be.

For now, he lay back on his new bed and slept.


End file.
